Apparently the Great Day has arrived.

I received another booklet from Irish Water yesterday announcing in breathless excitement that they were going to install my meter in the next three days.

Now I don't know where this ownership comes from.  It's not MY meter – it's theirs.  I have nothing to do with it.

Sure enough, they are out there today making a lot of noise and generally farting around.  I just checked and someone has dug up the little manhole thingy near my gate that they put in a year ago, but there's no sign of anyone working on it.  It has one of those little plastic fence arrangements around it presumably in case it tries to escape.

I honestly don't know what they hope to achieve, wasting money on an expensive little device that is not connected to anything.  If they think that by installing it that somehow binds me to some kind of contract then that's daft.  It's about as logical as my painting a circle on the ground outside your house and then demanding a grand a year because you let me paint the circle.  They are on public property and don't need my permission or consent, and therefore I have no dealings with them or their meter.  I have not consented to the meter therefore there is no contract.  As far as I am concerned, some blokes are doing something on a public right of way, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with me.

As I write this there is a fierce racket going on.  It sounds as if they are actually digging up the whole lane.  They're probably looking for my existing connection in which case I wish them luck – they won't find it.  To be quite frank, I'm not sure I could find the pipe myself.  It was put in nearly forty years ago and the landscape has changed a bit since then, so while I know roughly where it is, I couldn't say exactly where it is.  I can say where it isn't and that's where they have stuck their meter.

Presumably they are going to have to knock on my door at some stage.  They will either have to inform me that the meter is installed and that I have to connect it to the house – they can go fuck themselves if they think I'm going to do that – or they will want to know where my main pipe is – and I can feel a drop of amnesia coming on in that event.

One way or the other, I am prepared.

The bill-hook is out in the porch and raring to go.

UPDATE:

Damn!

They're gone without calling in, and I was all nicely worked up for a fight.

All they seem to have done is make a hames of it.  It was all nicely overgrown but now it's a fucking mess.

And the pipe still goes nowhere.